


Lightning Strikes

by raendown



Series: KakaSakuMonth2017 [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Myth/Fairytale AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-12-09 16:11:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11672568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raendown/pseuds/raendown
Summary: When the lightning strikes, Sakura catches it





	Lightning Strikes

**Author's Note:**

> Written for KakaSaku month on tumblr using the theme "fairytale/myth au"

There was a legend in the small village where she grew up that if you found the lightening and held it in your hand, it would never let you go. Sakura thought that sounded nice even if she wasn’t sure what it meant. No one did, really. The legend was so old that even the elders couldn’t remember its origins. It was only a myth nowadays, a tale told to children as a bedtime story.

It went something like this:

In the deepest part of the forest rose a tall hill, the tallest hill in all of Fire Country until you reached the mountains to the North. When the night turned dark and stormy and thunder rumbled across the sky, that was when the lightening came down. It always struck the same spot, only ever the top of that tall hidden hill. If one could find that hill and climb it, if one could catch the lightening as it came down and hold it tightly, the lightening would somehow mark you as its own. Then forever after that the lightening would come at your call.

Little pink haired Sakura had no siblings and no friends. Her parents had died when she was too young to remember how it happened. She grew up in an orphanage, listening to tales of the lightening and always getting stuck on that one line. Only the Matron of the orphanage ever phrased it that way but the idea that the lightning would ‘never let her go’ was an inspiration to a lonely little girl.

Sakura was seventeen when her village was attacked. The night was dark and stormy and thunder rumbled across the sky. Fires lit the darkness and choked her breath with black smoke as she and the other street waifs scrambled desperately through alleyways and back streets, fear driving them forward. She had seen bandits and warriors before. She had never seen the likes of those who stalked among the fires that night. The painted masks they wore dehumanized them, made them appear as demons striking from the shadows, raining wanton destruction upon the homes of the innocent citizens.

She escaped her village alone. Sakura was one of the fastest runners in their little community and she gained the dubious safety of the forest before any had spotted her pounding across the dark fields. As she rushed over the damp loam and crashed through the reaching branches of the twisted black trees, Sakura began to weep. She didn’t have much in life – didn’t have anything, in fact. The only thing she had ever had was a village to call home. Now that home burned behind her, the screams of people she had known her whole life rising in the air as she fled. She wept for those who had never shed a tear for her, mourning the passing of lives who had taken no noticed of her own.

The forest seemed to grow darker and the air almost fuzzy the longer Sakura ran. She could feel the hairs trying to stand up on her arms but she did not stop, only hurled herself farther, deeper. Her tears blinded her until she almost missed what was right in front of her. She nearly stumbled before slowing to a stop, marveling at the sight before her eyes.

The hill was indeed massive. She might have called it a cliff if one side were shorn off but the word simply didn’t seem to fit, not when the hill was so perfect symmetrical on all sides, rising out of the ground like an earthen swell. No rock nor tree dared defile the perfect smoothness of its shape. Sakura admired it for a few brief seconds before the taste of the salt in her tears reminded her of why she had come here, why she had fled in to the forest to find this awesome sight. She looked upwards, seeing the flickering of light within the inky clouds above her. The legends came to her mind then, the myths she had devoured as a child and could still recite by heart.

With a choked cry Sakura lunged forward. The hill was steep and she found herself climbing on all fours, hands scrabbling in the dirt as she fought desperately on. It seemed to take forever. Her feet slipped on the dewy grass and her fingers cut themselves on the earth but she never paused.

When she hauled herself up on to the very peak the air felt strangely charged. Her hair was rising from her head and her mouth flooded with a metallic taste. As she rose to her full height she heard a buzzing sound in her ear, a ringing she felt as if she had heard before in half forgotten dreams. Sakura blinked and it felt as if she were moving in slow motion. As her eyes opened she saw it begin – the lightening was striking. This was her chance.

The charge in the air reached a peak, humming in perfect synchronicity with the buzzing in her ears and Sakura _knew_ without knowing how she knew. The moment simply felt right. As thunder shattered the air Sakura reached towards the sky and in that same moment the heavens struck down with a single bolt of brilliant light. It came for her, aiming straight and true. Still seeing time move so strangely slow, Sakura watched the lightning as it raced down to her and she stretched her fingers towards it, reaching, reaching.

It struck. For a moment she felt too hot, too bright, too full. Surely this was what dying felt like. Then she felt fingers slid in to her palm and a hand grasped her own. Her eyes refocused to see something she had never expected: the shape of a man hidden within the lightening. He seemed to draw the power back from her until she no longer felt as if she were going to fly apart.

The flash of lightning faded and time seemed to move naturally again. As the light dimmed it seemed to retreat until it was contained within the man who held her hand. He had appeared almost upside down but now he slowly rotated in the air and floated down until his feet barely brushed the grass in front of her. Sakura stared at him with wide eyes, strangely unafraid.

“ **Well look at you**.” His voice was the booming of thunder, contained to a manageable decibel. “ **You’ve caught the lightning in your hand. But why do you cry, human?** ”

“My village…they destroyed it.” Her mind seemed fogged and yet crystal clear. She couldn’t believe this was happening, was helpless to do anything but answer the being’s question. Light flickered beneath his skin in random patterns, as if he _was_ the lightning which had struck her.

“ **Who has done this?** ” he asked. His words were calm but there was an edge of steel in his voice which flooded her mouth with the taste of metal again. The hairs on her arms rose again as she answered.

“I don’t know,” she said truthfully. “They had masks. They looked like demons.”

The man smiled and the flashing behind his teeth made his grin wicked. He seemed to drag through the air, bringing their bodies closer together and taking her other hand in his. Sakura felt as if the brilliance he had retrieved from her were flowing back and forth between them now, their joined hands creating a full circuit for the power to run around.

“ **You hold the lightning now,** ” he told her through his bared teeth. “ **How will you wield me?** ”

Sakura thought about it for a moment. Wield him? She wondered what his powers were, what he could do. Her poor, fragile human heart had a different question first, however.

“If I let go of your hand, will you leave?” Had she only captured him for a short time? Would he go if she let him?

“ **I have waited a long time for you, my Bearer. I will never let you go.** ” The sharp edge of his smile somehow looked not out of place below the softness of his eyes and the fondness with which he looked at her. Sakura couldn’t help but smile, tears drying on her cheeks.

“Never,” she whispered. He nodded.

“ **Now. Wield me. Show me the demons that I may strike them.** ”

Sakura nodded and reluctantly let go of one of the being’s hands. The feeling of power surging through their connection faded away and she sighed in disappointment. Just as she moved to turn away and lead him back to where she had come from, Sakura realized something. She stopped and faced his curious expression.

“What’s your name?” she asked. He blinked at her in surprise.

“ **I am Raikiri, the Lightning Cutter. I do not have a name. You may give me one, if you wish, so long as you give me yours in return.** ”

“My name is Sakura,” she said. “Hmm…I think…your name is…Kakashi!” He blinked slowly, then brought his free hand up to trace it slowly down one side of her face. It left a burning tingle in its wake which she found oddly pleasant instead of painful.

“ **A good name,** ” he rumbled. “ **I will cherish it. As you shall cherish the mark I gift to you. You now belong to me, Sakura, as I now belong to you.** ”

Sakura bought her hand up to touch the place where his finger had touched her face. His power seemed to crackle under her skin along the path his finger had taken and she wondered what it would look like if she saw herself in a mirror. Beautiful, doubtlessly.

Without further words, Sakura turned to lead Kakashi down the hill and back towards her dying village.

A new legend was born that day.  The legend of the Lightning Bearer. It was said that she held the lightning in her fists, wielding it against those who would cause harm to innocent people. The legend spoke of the brand on her face that lit the night sky, shining with the power she struck with, and the unholy calm in her eyes, the peace in her expression as the lightning raised the hair from her shoulders to float in the air around her.

They called her a goddess but Sakura knew better. She was more lucky than that. Instead she had taken the hand of a god. And neither one of them had ever let go.


End file.
